ISLAMABAD: Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Shah on Tuesday expressed concern over what he called ‘non-implementation’ of the National Action Plan.
Talking to reporters in his chamber at the parliament house, he called for a judicial probe into terrorist attacks in Peshawar’s Army Public School and Bacha Khan University in Charsadda.
He said people wanted to know who was responsible for the two attacks.
“I ask the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to conduct a judicial investigation into the two tragedies,” the PPP leader said.
“We do not know what actually happened in the Army Public School and Charsadda university and what is the outcome of any investigation carried out so far?”
Mr Shah accused the federal government of making no significant progress on the NAP and said only 60 out of 3,000 major terrorism cases had been sent to military courts.
“What progress can we expect on the NAP if terrorism cases are sent to military courts at this pace?”
The opposition leader wondered who was responsible for non-implementation of the National Action Plan after the interior minister’s decision to disassociate himself from it.
He said the government had made the National Counter-Terrorism Authority dysfunctional. “Neither vacant posts have been filled in the authority nor have its meetings been called. Its website has not been prepared either.”
Mr Shah said while people were facing terrorism, the government was terrorising its political opponents. Three PPP councillors in Rahimyar Khan were tortured to force them to change their loyalty and finally they resigned from the district council, he said.
“The prime minister should stop such state terrorism. Otherwise it will not be a good omen for democracy.”
The opposition leader praised Chief of Army Staff Gen Raheel Sharif for his announcement to retire from service on the due date, saying the decision had improved the army’s image.
“We have seen some generals in the past who invoked the doctrine of necessity to seize power and continued to rule for almost a decade.”
Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2016
